Nicholdale Cutting Party

The brush at the Nicholdale Land Trust Preserve can grow really fast at certain times of the year; like Summer.  And it certainly has this year.  It's been several weeks since the trails were last brush cut so today was the day.

We had eight volunteers on a cloudy morning to cut out the blue-blazed Nichols Loop around Nicholdale.

Ellen & Mike lead most of the volunteers along one end of the trail and a couple of us went the other way.  It's sometimes better to spread out when you're using power tools for work party safety.

The section of the trail that parallels Rt. 110 was pretty thick and overgrown.  Particularly where trees were cleared (by ConnDOT or UI) within the State Right of Way earlier in the summer.  The grass and brush exploded with the extra sunlight when the trees were removed.  Above is a before picture.

And the "After" picture.  We tried to cut the briars, thorns, and grass, and leave the wildflowers and native plants.

Bill was coming thru with his electric hedgetrimmer cutting out briars.

Anne, Athena, and Ellen at the end of the work party.  Everybody made it out at the end.  Another perfect work party without loosing anyone: 100% volunteer retention.

The Shelton Land Trust's Nicholdale parcel is a great location to observe fall wildflowers and bird migrations.  And the Preserve is easy to navigate now that the trails are cleared.  Thanks to everyone who helped out today: Aidan, Athena, Anne, Bill, Ellen, Greg, Mike & Terry.

Nicholdale June 2024 - Stuff is Growing: Holy #$?!!&

It's June - there's water, and sun, and it's warm, and everything is freaking growing.  At once. Everywhere.  It's the busy time of the trail year.  

The trails on the Shelton Land Trust's property at Nicholdale and the surrounding trails are no exception.  Luckily, we had some wonderful volunteers to show up on Saturday to brush back the summer vegetation.  on the Means Brook Greenway.

Bodie and Daniel did a great job weedwhacking the trails.  The sections in the open sun were out of control in places.

 

This was a "Before" photo of a one of the trails connecting the Nichols Trail with the Stockmal Trail on the north side of Rt. 110.

Here's the "After" photo.    Much clearer where to go.

Cooper and Jeff were working on the Nicholdale Connector.  The cleared sections of the trail and cut away brush so you can clearly see the trail signs and painted blazes.

 

It's a big improvement when you're trying to find your way.  The Shelton Land Trust mows the trails in the fields with a tractor and mower, but they have a tougher time working in the woods.

John and Jeff lead the group across Rt. 110 where they worked on clearing out Stockmal Trail over towards Means Brook.  The sections at the Iroquois Gas Pipeline, the swamp before the bridge, and the fern walk afterwards needed to be opened up.

 Daniel and Bodie were clearing out the trails around the junction.

Luis cleared out over to the Nicholdale sign along Rt 110, then worked down to The Stone Bridge.  The other's came back from the north side of Rt. 110, and then worked their way on the Nichols Trail and cleared out the Pearmain Path too.

 

The Stone Bridge had been hidden in hay and weeds.  But not now.

Nicholdale has a number of waypoint nature signs explaining various features of the property.  Now access to them is all cleared out.

 

Ellen Cramp was clearing out briars along the trails with the new electric hedgetrimer.  It's a new addition to our trail tools and seems to be quite useful.

It's a busy time of the year keeping up with all the new growth along the trails.  But, we had a fine crew of volunteers today and got a lot of trails in the White Hills cleared.  It was a really productive morning.  We didn't get pictures of everybody, but their work is still much appreciated.  Thanks to Joe Welsh from the Land Trust for helping out, thanks to Annie, Cooper, Daniel, Bodie, John, Jeff, Luis, Terry, Ellen, and Ted.  Hot work, but well done.  And thanks to Jeff for bringing all the water bottles.

If anyone is doing the 2024 Shelton Trails Challenge the trails around Nicholdale are much easier to walk after today.

The Shelton Land Conservation Trust has another work party scheduled next Saturday to remove invasive species.  From what I saw today there are a lot of targets to remove.  Check the Land Trust's website for additional information.

Muddy Marshmallow March 2024

Under threatening skies we did get in the 2024 Marshmallow March before it rained, hard.  A little sprinkling at the end.  Last week's scheduled event was rained out.

But were our hikers deterred by a little rain?  Heck no, not with a campfire to be had.

And that was just the trails volunteers who were excited, never mind the kids.  A hot fire and some toasted marshmallows at Nicholdale banished any dreary skies.

A group of trails volunteers got there earlier to get the fire started.  The new firewood crib built by the scouts was a nice addition this year.  Here is Mark using the trails blowtorch to get the fire started.

The kids and parents seemed to have a great time.

Thanks to the Shelton Land Conservation Trust for hosting the event on their property at Nicholdale.  Joe Welsh, President of the Land Trust was doing some hands on land management trying to dry out the trails leading to the scout camp.  The Shelton Land Trust is a great local charity if anyone is interested in helping with nature preserves.

We even had some out-of-state tourists show up for the event.  Rich S. was a former trail commissioner who stopped in from Florida for the event.

The scouts also fixed up the picnic tables over the winter.  Mark, Ellen & Bill were whittling sticks and helping out with smores during the event.

It was a surprisingly fun afternoon given the forecast.  Rich and Bill kept rotating around the fire to minimize the smoke in their eyes.  All the kids and families had fun time.  Shelton's first 2024 guided hike was successfully, if somewhat muddily, in the books.

Marshmallow March 2023 Edition

It was SUNNY, and DRYER, and WARMER today, than it was YESTERDAY.  Which made for an overall BETTER day to hold the Marshmallow March, than Saturday is the rain, wind, and cold.  We should plan for rain dates more often.  It was a SPLENDID AFTERNOON at the Shelton Land Trust's Nicholdale Preserve for the annual Marshmallow March.

These 2 guys managed to carry a log almost as big as they were using teamwork.  We need more of that in Shelton - good job. The Marshmallow March was postponed from Saturday till Sunday due to rain, and it was a much nicer day and better weather conditions.

 

 Ellen, Bill, and Terry got the party started by hauling in firewood, then using a propane torch and a cavalier attitude toward fire safety, to get the fire ring set up at the Nicholdale campsite prior to the hikers arriving.  Ellen even brought a couple of buckets to haul water and put out fires, if necessary.

 

Trail Safety Tip:  Next year get the water buckets ready first, then start the fire.

The first group of hikers arrived at the Scout camping area and Bill Dyer spoke to them.  The marshmallows are on the way.  Sharpen your sticks and wait a bit (actually not sure Bill said that, but that's what happened).

 

The rest of the party arrived and started toasting marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers (sometimes known as S'mores).  We wound up having 24-30 hikers, including a number of younger marshmallow toasters and eaters.

 

It was fun.  Luis, Bill, Ellen, and Mark had a pleasant discussion on fire safety and muddy trail conditions.

A lot of families had a good time toasting marshmallows.  I think a lot of kids outsourced this task to the 'rents.

Time to go.  Some people know how to leverage their parental riding time just because of their cuteness.  Mary, I hope you and your family had a good time out today.

It was a good afternoon, sunny skies, dry weather, multiple families sent home with overdosed sugar highs among certain members due to graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate.  There were no forest fires.  Hope that everyone had a good, it somewhat muddy time.

Thanks to the Shelton Land Conservation Trust for again allowing us to host this hike on their Nicholdale Preserve.  

Joe Welsh, President of the Shelton Land Trust, for showing us the operations of their Sugar Shack afterwards.  It's amazing how boiling up sugar maple tree sap in the spring leads to wonderful maple syrup down the road.  One of the great delights of living in New England.

Joe & Ryan Welsh have a sugar shack at their house and were currently boiling sap from this Spring's run.

The wood fired evaporator pan was keeping the shack toasty and steamy. 

It was neat seeing how maple syrup is locally made and graded for sale.  We even got some warm samples of the sap being boiled down.

And the sweet finished product - from Connecticut sugar maple trees - locally sourced.  Thanks for the tour Joe.

Stockmal & Trombetta Work Party

 It was another warm Saturday for summer trail clearing.  This weekend it was clearing the Stockmal Trail and exploring the Trombetta Woods loop on the north side of Rt. 110.  We also cleared portions of Nichols Trail and the Willis Woods trail, so 4 trails worked on in one work party. We met at the Land Trust's Nicholdale parking lot and worked our way on the Nichols Trail over to Rt. 110.

Mark & Luis had been out earlier in the week and cut up a large blowdown that was hard to get over near the end of the Stockmal Trail.   That was really helpful because we didn't have to carry the chainsaws back there and could concentrate on the brush.

Mike cleared out along the Nicholdale parking lot with the trimming head on one of the brushcutters.   He then cleared all the way out to Trombetta and back.  Hope that his shoulder was able to recover the next day.

We worked out thru Stockmal and cleaned that up.  Then walked over to Trombetta to see the Mile-A-Minute invasive vine control project.  Means Brook was very low due to the drought.

We had a good crew of volunteers cutting; Gabby, Sam, Jeff & Brooklyn working here.  Luis & Annie had gone back and were clearing out the Willis Woods loop.

Trombetta had already gotten one cutting this year to access the MAM mess, but it had grown up again with limited foot traffic.  It's a lot clearer and easier to follow now.

Teresa was using her battery powered hedge trimmer to get as some of the barberry and other invasives.  Clearing the MAM vines before they expand all over Shelton has been a big task this Summer.

Bob was cutting and leading most of the work party.  He even made sure everybody came out of the woods at the end of the morning.

It was a hot and Sluggy Saturday (3 slugs out of 5).  I think that we were all tired and drenched when we got done.  Thanks to everybody who came out: Annie, Gabby, Jeff, Sam, Teresa, Luis, Brooklyn, Bob, Mike and Terry.  And thanks to Mark and Luis for cutting those logs earlier in the week.  These trails are clear and easy to follow; so print out a map and go exploring.   The wildflowers are in bloom at Nicholdale, and the streams are easy to cross.

Full House for the Full Moon Hike

We scheduled most of our guided hikes earlier in the year prior to Covid.  We had to cancel some due to the pandemic but thought we could have the Fall Full Moon Hike at the Land Trust's Nicholdale Preserve on Rt. 110.  The traditional campfire and marshmallow roast was omitted to space people out.  It was assumed that most people probably wouldn't come out for that.

Boy, were we wrong and how. 

The main parking lot at Nicholdale was filled a half hour before the 7:00 start.  It was a good thing that we cleaned out all the storm damaged trees a couple of weeks earlier, otherwise there wouldn't have been any room to park.

The overflow lot overflowed onto Rt. 110.  People were parking up and down the road and on side streets.

This was probably the most well attended hike that we've ever hosted.  There were lots of families with kids and dogs.  We got everybody off the road and hiked around the Nichols Trail in the dark.  There were stops along the way to see the stars from the Land Trust meadows, but the full moon hadn't risen yet.  

It was a warm night so we enjoyed that stars and dark with the accompanying music from Fairview Farms haunted trails in the background.  It was good that people were able to spread out and wear their masks during the hike. 

Everybody made it back, we think, in the dark to the parking lot to finally see the Full Moon rise.  We counted 157 people and 7 dogs.  We also had to turn away people.  It was insane.

It took a while to get everybody out of the parking lots, but everyone made it ok thanks to Bob's traffic directions with a flashlight on Rt. 110.  Next year we'll bring more lights.  Everyone seemed to have a fine time even without the marshmallows.   Thanks to Val, Bob, Bill, Mike, and Luis for publicity, guiding and traffic control.  Thanks to everybody who came and thanks to the Shelton Land Trust for letting us use their property.

Nicholdale Log Rolling (storm clean-up)

The parking lot at the Shelton's Land Trust's Nicholdale Preserve needed to be cleared of several fallen trees at Storm Ess-Ahh-ee-sahs.   Technically, the lot was open after an initial storm clearing, but there was a lot of junk to remove to make the trailhead really usable.  

Who were those masked trail workers?  This is the "After" picture with Val, Bob, Mike, Terry, Graham, Mark, Ellen, Luis, and Bill, when all the work was done.

This was the "During" photo when people were sawing, hauling, dragging and stacking all the debris.  There were three trees that were criss-crossed over the parking lot.  The trunks were cut up into fire wood for the scouts, and the tops were stockpiled for later chipping by the Shelton Highways and Bridges Department.

Mark and Ellen clearing up the debris.

Bob Wood having a great old time with the brushcutter.

Bob & Luis clearing back the parking and driveway after the trees and tops were sawed up.

And a new trail sport; competitive log racing.  Bob is in the lead, Ellen is close behind, and Val is Running to Show.

There was an impressive pile of fire wood at the end.  Nice job by everyone who came out to clean up all the storm damage.